de;partme;nt oi? historical research. ioi 



manuscript materials of this sort accessible in Washington. But it has been 

 thought essential, at this stage of the preparation of that work, to list with 

 proper care all those letters of the class included in our scheme, which have 

 already been printed. Whether these shall or shall not be printed in con- 

 junction with the others is a matter for subsequent determination, depending 

 among other things upon quantitative considerations ; but at any rate we 

 should have a full list of them in hand. The printed material for the period 

 1 774-1 789 is so voluminous that this search has involved much labor, occupy- 

 ing a large part of the time, since he joined our staflf in January, of Dr. 

 E. C. Burnett, to whom the editorial care of this series has been assigned. 

 This search is now nearly completed. 



Miss Davenport's time since she returned from London has been so 

 largely occupied with preparing for publication in the Guide, mentioned in 

 the previous section, her notes on the minor archives of that city, that she 

 has been able to do little with the collection of treaties between foreign 

 powers which have a bearing on American history. 



The proposed edition of the proceedings and debates of Parliament re- 

 specting the American colonies has advanced by several months' substantial 

 work on the part of Dr. H. M. Bowman, who was chiefly engaged with this 

 series until he left our service to enter that of the archives of the Dominion 

 of Canada. Work on the proceedings logically preceded work on the debates, 

 for the former would inevitably show a greater number and range of items 

 than the latter, since many votes or actions of Parliament are not represented 

 by any recorded debates. At the time of his departure. Dr. Bowman had 

 nearly completed to 1783 a list of all the entries relating to America in the 

 Commons journals. 



Several other enterprises of textual publication for the colonial period, 

 alluded to in last year's report as possible and desirable, are in a fair way to 

 be completed by other means. At the instance of the clerk of the Privy 

 Council and of the professor of colonial history in the University of Oxford, 

 the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury have agreed to print at government 

 expense, to the extent of three royal octavo volumes, a collection of those 

 entries in the registers of the Privy Council which relate to the British 

 colonies before 1776, provided the expense of copying and editing is other- 

 wise defrayed. I earnestly hope that the Carnegie Institution may bear a 

 part in the maintenance of this series, sure to be rich in new and important 

 materials for our history, since the Privy Council was, throughout the 

 period indicated, the central organ of British colonial administration, yet 

 few historians have hitherto had access to its records. A second enterprise, 

 the publication of the royal proclamations respecting America, has been 

 undertaken by the American Antiquarian Society, while one embracing all 

 acts of Parliament relating to the colonies before the Revolution has been 

 taken in hand by Professor MacDonald, of Brown University. To the second 

 of these undertakings this Department has rendered considerable aid. 



